On His Majesty's Service, His Highness Sayyid Bilarab visits international institutions in Switzerland

On assignment from His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik, His Highness Sayyid Bilarab bin Haitham Al Said, Honorary President of the Oman's Startups Programme, visited a number of international organisations, research centres and business incubators in Geneva, Switzerland today.

His Highness met Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organisation.

During the meeting, they discussed the role played by the organisation in overcoming the challenges facing the global economy, developments in negotiations with the World Trade Organisation, global economic opportunities, procedures for ratifying the fisheries support agreement and cooperation opportunities to support innovative, technological startups.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iwela explained that emerging companies are the future for the global economy.

His Highness was briefed on the initiatives of the World Trade Organisation to support small and medium enterprises and the opportunities for cooperation between the WTO and Oman in this field, to enhance the growth of such enterprises in the region. His Highness was given an introductory tour of the facilities of the World Trade Organisation building.

His Highness Sayyid Belarab bin Haitham Al Said also met Daren Tang, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

The meeting discussed  cooperation between Oman and WIPO including the frankincense project, which will be jointly implemented by the Sultanate and WIPO. There was also an exchange of views on cooperation programmes with the Academy of the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Oman to support entrepreneurs and to enhance cooperation with Oman's startups programme.

His Highness was also briefed on the Omani version of the Basics of Intellectual Property Course (DL101) – which aims to spread awareness of the importance of intellectual property in the Sultanate, by targeting workers in the intellectual property sector, innovators and creators, to help them generate new intellectual property assets.

His Highness also visited the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), which specialises in advanced research in the field of physics. CERN has produced many inventions and innovations and was most notably the birthplace of the global information network that is known today as the internet.

CERN provides special programmes to transform challenges into entrepreneurial opportunities for emerging companies through its incubation programmes. During the visit of His Highness, cooperation between the Centre and the Omani startups program was reviewed.

His Highness and his accompanying delegation also visited the Campus Biotech Foundation, a leading institution in innovation and new technologies and laboratories in the field of bioenergy. It also offers specialised business incubators for startups and training programmes to support entrepreneurial projects and link them to global markets. The visit discussed opportunities for implementing a joint programme between the Foundation and the startups programme in Oman.

His Highness was accompanied during his visit by: Qais bin Mohammed Al Youssef, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion; Halima bint Rashid Al Zariya, Chair of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority; Ambassador Idris Abdul Rahman Alkhanjari, Permanent Representative of the Sultanate of Oman to the United Nations and international organisations in Geneva as well as the owners of various Omani startups working in the technology and innovation fields and technical work teams from several government agencies.

This is an unofficial English version of an Arabic report. To view the official Arabic text, click here.